Category: Online Audio

The Risk Profession by Donald E. Westlake

SFFaudio Online Audio

One of my favourite writers, Donald E. Westlake, mostly left the SFF field for the greener pastures of crime fiction after the 1960s. He was very successful there.

The Risk Profession, first published in 1961, is a fun SF novelette and one well worthy of our continued attention.

Another guy who appreciated Westlake was my friend, Gregg Margarite, who narrated it for LibriVox back in 2010.

The plot, a murder mystery, concerns an insurance investigator who makes a trip to the asteroid belt to investigate the death of an asteroid miner.

The Risk Profession by Donald E. Westlake - illustrated by Ivie

LibriVoxThe Risk Profession
By Donald E. Westlake; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 1 Hour 4 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: January 17, 2010
“The men who did dangerous work had a special kind of insurance policy. But when somebody wanted to collect on that policy the claims investigator suddenly became a member of… The Risk Profession.” First published in Amazing Stories, March 1961.

Here’s a |PDF| made from the publication in Amazing.

[Thanks also to Wendel Topper and Lucy Burgoyne]

Posted by Jesse Willis

At The Mountains Of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft (abridged, read by Richard Coyle)

SFFaudio Online Audio

Though I’m of the opinion you should go for the Wayne June version (physical copy HERE or Audible.com HERE) I should point out that the abridged 2010 BBC reading of H.P. Lovecraft’s At The Mountains Of Madness, as read by Richard Coyle (with added bed music) is wholly available streaming.

Here’s the official description:

This 2010 adaptation comprises 5 episodes, originally aired on BBC Radio 7, and offered here in exclusive EXTENDED EDITIONS. You will find an additional 30 mins of terror-filled audio within these five episodes!

Abridged by Paul Kent
Read by Richard Coyle
Music by Jon Nicholls
Produced by Neil Gardner

Posted by Jesse Willis

Wireless Theatre Company + Moonlight Audio Theatre: Burke And Hare

SFFaudio Online Audio

Up the close and doun the stair,
But and ben wi’ Burke and Hare.
Burke’s the butcher, Hare’s the thief,
Knox the boy that buys the beef.
—19th-century Edinburgh skipping rhyme

Burke And Hare

There may never have been a blacker comedy than this horrifying (and horrifyingly funny) audio drama about a pair of real life murderers. William Burke and William Hare apparently killed sixteen people in the early 19th century selling the corpses to an anatomist named Dr. Robert Knox.

This audio drama, which I found in the Moonlight Audio Theatre podcast feed, is well written, smartly acted, and full of ripe innuendo. Burke And Hare is clever and creepy. If you’ve seen the 1999 horror/comedy film Ravenous, also based on a true story, you know how disturbing this kind of mix can be.

Moonlight Audio TheatreBurke And Hare
By Terence Newman; Performed by a full cast
2 MP3 Files – Approx. 77 Minutes [AUDIO DRAMA]
Podcaster: Moonlight Audio Theatre
Podcast: June 2013
This is the story of the infamous 19th Century Scottish Grave-robbers who weren’t Scottish and didn’t rob graves. They were actually Irish and as robbing graves to supply the needs of Edinburgh’s anatomists proved to be rather hard work, they just took to murdering people – usually their neighbours – for profit. In collaboration with their common-law wives they set about supplying corpses for Dr John Knox an eminent Scottish surgeon with considerable enthusiasm and gusto. The play follows their business exploits from small beginnings, through their days of peak output to the final reckoning – set against a world that is becoming recognisably modern.

Part 1 |MP3|
Part 2 |MP3|

Podcast feed: http://moonlightaudio.libsyn.com/rss

Starring:
Rob Crouch
Jonathan Clarkson
Genevieve Swallow
Holly McLay
Clive Greenwood
Neil McCormack
Adam Hall

Edited by: Joe Siddons
Directed by: Robert Valentine
Music by: Adam Bernstein

Posted by Jesse Willis

The Tower Of The Elephant by Robert E. Howard

SFFaudio Online Audio

The Tower Of The Elephant!
The Tower Of The Elephant - adaptation by Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor Smith

Athena Audio Theater CompanyThe Tower Of The Elephant
By Robert E. Howard; Read by Jason McMullan
2 MP3 Files – Approx. 91 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Athena Audio Theater
Podcast: April – May 2013
A strange, blood-freezing story of an idol that wept on its throne, and a valorius barbarian from the fringes of an elder civilization. First published in Weird Tales, March 1933.

Part 1 |MP3| Part 2 |MP3|

Podcast feed: http://www.athenatheater.org/book-show/rss.xml

The Tower Of The Elephant by Robert E. Howard

Posted by Jesse Willis

The Highwayman by Lord Dunsany (read by Mike Vendetti)

SFFaudio Online Audio

The Highwayman by Lord Dunsany

I love The Highwayman by Lord Dunsany. It’s a terrific twelve minute tale, a prose poem of career criminals turned beneficent brigands. And my friend Mike Vendetti liked it a whole bunch too, have a listen a listen to his reading of it! |MP3|

Here’s a fully illustrated |PDF|.

Posted by Jesse Willis